Our New Agenda: Opportunity Green and the Emerging Movement
In it’s second year, the Opportunity Green conference, hosted at UCLA, was a big success. Kudos to Karen Solomon and her team! This year was amplified in many ways over last, including major brand name sponsors, media partners and speakers. It was a very progressive sustainability event; mingling movement building, innovation and collaborative culture.
Opportunity Green:
Having attended Opportunity Green last year, I believe the conference has some very unique qualities. As opposed to other sustainability conferences, Opportunity Green’s DNA is L.A. – A little more style and flash, as well as a concentration on the business upside in going green.
From a crowd perspective, you also see more students involved, which is very valuable. As the dominant industries of L.A., Media and celebrities are well represented as well. I like that Opportunity Green also includes Clean Tech and Venture Capital as core concentration areas. If you are an entrepreneur, this is probably the best conference for exploring the potential to rapidly move from idea to wide scale market penetration.
Manifesto:
Opportunity Green issued a manifesto that resonated with me, framed in the power of coming together. The manifesto speaks to Opportunity Green serving a movement to transform business for good; advancing change and market transformation. It goes on to establish itself as a gathering to create a collaborative, positive culture of change with a focus on innovation and inspiration. An experience acting as catalyst for sustainable, profitable and responsible business. I encourage other corporations to follow suit and position themselves as participating in the movement for positive change.
Core Conference Themes:
- Waste, Radical Transparency, Collaboration, Authenticity, Social Media, Personal and Corporate Responsibility
Cutting Edge Paradigm shifts:
- Collective Action, Brands as inspiration, Open Source Brands
Bleeding Edge Paradigms shifts:
- Products and services for underserved communities (Base of the Pyramid type concept applied to U.S. market)
- Corporation as platform for environmental, social, personal change
Special shout outs to:
- 1% for the Planet and B Labs. Recommendation: see how you can align with these organizations.
Ones to watch:
Michael Leifer, Swirl – Social Media Guru
Tom Szaky, Terracycle - Value in Waste
Emerging Movement:
I am sensing a tight tribe growing in California. They showed up at Opportunity Green, Pachamama Alliance Benefit, Full Circle Fund Philanthropy Remixed, Green Festival San Francisco, The Global Summit, and the recent Global Green USA Benefit. The majority are living in San Francisco or L.A. and showing up often in either city. We all come from different industries; film, media, technology, sustainability, social causes, but seem to share a common intent, which I am interpreting as taking new values to scale to create a new culture.
Hoping to see you somewhere soon.
Upcoming events:
Sustainable Brands International – Dec. 9-11, Miami Gathering of corporate community to share initiatives, best practices and the latest research in sustainability. If you can’t make it to Miami, watch it on the web. Ray Anderson of Interface, Tuesday @ 5:30 EST.
Related posts:
Opportunity Green – Staying Green and Going Big
Environmental Defense Fund’s Innovation Review: Big Eco Ideas From Big Business
Van Jones Green Collar Manifesto
Social Entrepreneurship is Growing
Full Disclosure: This author has promoted many of the people and events contained here via social media platforms as citizen journalist and friend.
